SAECDTU 1st YEAR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION & GALA DINNER

SAECDTU 1st Year Anniversary Gala Dinner and Conference; marks a beacon of triumph and reformation of the Early Childhood Development Sector and an emergence of a typology of cinderella group of practitioners; the professionals and unprofessionals, unqualified and under-qualified. These unsung heroine and heroes have suffered a great deal of injustice and indignity for the past thirty years and more in the hands of our government. Hence, His Excellency The President of the Republic of South Africa, Mr Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, openly confessed and acknowledged neglection of multiplicity since 1994 to date, he then proclaimed Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector a “priority” and a focus area towards the achievement of the National Development Plan of 2030; that seeks to universalise and professionalise the education system in South Africa. 

Due to multiple failures of implementation of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) at the schools, since 1996, our practitioners had to endure an unsystematic exclusion by the Department of Education for decades, in which resulted to mistreatment, maladministration, working without benefits, working with pension fund and constant retrenchment and, a high rate of unemployment of the Diploma in Grade R graduates. At last the Bella Bill was assented by the President, after our militant engagement with the Ministry of Education in Tshwane. The actualisation and naturalisation of the BELA Act served as a beacon of hope for the long anticipated integration into the mainstream education.

SAECDTU has become the official home for the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Sector, with the main objective to advocate for reformation, commemoration and restoration of the dignity of the Practitioners, Principals (Matrons) and or Owners. SAECDTU oversees the Grade R practitioners, SGB educators, Student Practitioners and Retirees. SAECDTU ultimate special objective is to oversee the ECD Sector (age 0-9) includes the foundation phase; the mainstream education and the higher education institutions (HEI); i.e. Universities, Colleges and FET’s.